view entire entry: 2001_05_21:18: Pah to see pictures, view entire journal now in bloom on my patio respond responses |
All fuchsias except for "Guinevere," "Dollar Princess," "Golden
Marinka" are in full bloom. "Blue Eyes" and "Winston Churchill" are loving
the marine layer. "Blue Satin" has exploded from a one-inch sprout to a
three-foot blooming plant in just one month. The one I thought would be "Swing Time" turned out to be "White Pixie" instead, and it looks like a little christmas tree covered with bubble-gum-pink-and-white ornaments. "Dusky Rose" has so many blossoms on it that you can't see the pot. "Voodoo" had the hardest time with the recent fertilizer attack; I've moved it from the patio up to the shower window, where it is recuperating and has just slitted one very fat bud. I took several cuttings from the few fuchsia branches that weren't loaded with buds and stuck them in a terrarium. The flowers sometimes drop from the fuchsias before they have faded; I gather these up and set them in a small bowl of water on my desk for an unusual upside-down view. The calamondin is blooming and making fruits; I'm still taking the fruits away from the orange because the plant is too skinny to hold them up. All sign of citrus bud mite is gone from all the citrus, including the lemon, which was the original culprit. Fragrant blooms: Big shots this month: trachelospermum, calamondin, orange, dark purple petunias, pink stock, freesia, hybrid tea rose "Tropicana," honeysuckle, alyssum. The pittosporum and the boronia are just finishing. Fragrant plants gearing up: Night blooming jasmine. The pink striped boronia is making a comeback and just starting to show buds. The miniature gardenia has at least 100 buds; "Mystery" has about 30. South African jasmine preparing 200-300 buds. Stargazer lillies each have 3 or 4. Just color: Bougainvillea "San Diego Red"--main branch has persistently bloomed for months, and now has sent out about ten side-stalks, all blooming. Martha Washington geranium "Morwenna" , alyogyne, maroon and yellow dahlia, bougainvillea "Raspberry Ice", yellow epidendrum, impatiens in all colors, ivy geranium in white with red, feijoa tree, orange hibiscus, blue vinca, solanum jasminoides, bougainvillea Rosenka, solanum rantonnetii, scaevola, chrysanthemum, cyclamens, yellow euryops daisy tree, pomegranate, yellow and pink kalanchoes, orange tuberous begonia, half the primroses, cistus purpureus, blue felicia, sedum morganianium, lobelia, lotus, calla lillies. Still a few blooms on both white and red leptospermum scoparium. Expecting this month: pandorea jasmonoides, gladiolus, bignonia riversii, hibiscus syriacus, nerium, mandevillea. Hoping for next month: plumeria, yellow hibiscus, stephenotis, white wing hibiscus, variegated Raspberry Ice, bougainvillea Texas Dawn (resting). No signs yet of red tuberous begonias or tuberoses. Blooming Indoors: the unstoppable fragrant spathophyllum in south-west shaded room; red anthurium in north-east bright window; nemantanthus in north-east filtered sun window; columnea in sunny south-west window. Phalenopsis in dark south-west window has made one new leaf. |
view entire entry: 2001_05_22:20: What You Make Of It to see pictures, view entire journal now in bloom on my patio respond responses |
'Litter' is a funny word to a plant-lover, even one who is in the landscape design business. My clients frequently tell me that they want a tree that blooms but they don't want "litter." By 'litter' they mean that the tree drops bits of itself on the ground. Blossoms on the ground is the kind of thing I barely notice. Right now, with the fuchsias, the feijoa, the impatiens, the freesia, the Martha Washington geranium, the bougainvilleas, the brunfelsia, the star jasmine, and the honeysuckle in full bloom, the cement surface of my patio is as colorful as the as the the plants themselves. But that's how it is. There's no such thing as a blooming plant that doesn't drop blooms. Either you accept the litter as part of the package, or you don't really want a garden. Showcase idea: Many La Jolla home owners have "gardeners" (aka day laborers)come once a week because they like the neighbors to see that they have lots of people working for them on a regular basis. That makes the idea of a low-maintenance garden seem rather pointless to some people. They allow the day laborers to hack at their plants because it makes them look busy, and the day laborers are happy to do it, again, because they know it makes them look like they are doing something. But day laborers don't know anything about plants, and only make the property look like it's been hacked at by cheap laborers. The solution? Get a lot of plants and trees that bloom all year. Tell the day laborers to leave their sharp instruments in the truck, and only let them bring brooms and rakes onto the property. Since they are in fact day laborers and not gardeners, it won't make any difference to them to spend their time sweeping up blossoms instead of shaving the bushes into awkward shapes. When it's really time to prune (ONCE a year), get a real professional to come in for the day, preferably right before the day laborers come with their brooms. Your neighbors will see that you not only have the most beautiful blooming garden in town, but that you have lots of very busy workers "maintaining" it. And the best part is that, with all that sweeping, they won't have the opportunity to butcher your plants. This way, you can simultaneously have a lush, low-maintenance, colorful garden, AND spend a lot of money on pointless labor! Just noticed that the tibouchina has fat buds, which I expect will open this month. The rose should probably be moved from its five gallon pot to a seven-gallon. The apartment manager has just warned me that his own day-laborers will be by this month, and, given that they don't understand English, will not be able to follow his directions not to cut down my potted honeysuckle blooming just outside the yard. He agreed to help me move it onto Rosey's patio until the day laborers are gone, then move it back. Last year I raised holy hell when they "trimmed" my magnificent arbor full of morning glory, cutting the vines right in the middle and leaving them hanging brown from the pergola. The day laborers are now terrified of me. But terror alone does not make them understand how to take care of plants; only horticultural education and experience can do that, and that's not likely to happen as long as people continue to hire unskilled laborers to do their "gardening." Your garden is your public face. Make it good. |
view entire entry: 2001_04_06:16: Personality Tests to see pictures, view entire journal now in bloom on my patio |
First bloom of fuchsia Dollar Princess (deep purple in deep fuchsia pink) opened today; Blue Eyes, Winston Churchill, Dusty Rose, Southgate all started. First freesia blossom will open tomorrow--looks like yellow. All wisteria buds have opened. |
view entire entry: 2001-04-21:01:19 to see pictures, view entire journal now in bloom on my patio |
The freesia weren't supposed to bloom so many at a time. I can't breathe with all that perfume in the air. |
view entire entry: 2001_04_02:23: One Little Academic.html to see pictures, view entire journal now in bloom on my patio |
I am surprised and overwhelmed by the penetrating fragrance of the boronia. There are other flowers mixing with it right now; but I was shocked when the first single 1/4-inch flower opened and the scent from that tiny pink object wafted off the patio and filled the house. It's quite as strong as nightblooming jasmine (cestrum), but without the tendency to suffocate. When I got the tiny boronia (6 inches tall) a year and a half ago, its four small flowers seemed like they might have a little sweet fragrance, but I couldn't say for sure. Now I realize that the plant was just tired and downtrodden at the time. With combined chemical fog spewing out of the wisteria, pink jasmine, and alyssum, unwary neighbors don't have a chance. Traffic jams form in the parking lot as people are arrested by the cloud eminating from the patio. They comment loudly; if I'm in my outdoor office, they stop to chat, each offering their theories as to what plant it might be, though none of them have ever heard of a boronia before and prefer to insist that it is coming from something that I don't own. I think I've met more of my neighbors since the boronia opened than I've met in the entire four years I've lived here. Others? Too many to describe. I simply list for the purposes of my garden almanac: Just getting started this monthFragrant Still in bloom from last monthFragrant In full bud
Expected next month
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